


The Woman He Cannot Lose

by Ceara_Einin



Series: The Moon World [4]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia (Movies), Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Caspian pines like the angsty sap he is, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Pining, Romance, Rosian because I had to, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:00:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25455082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ceara_Einin/pseuds/Ceara_Einin
Summary: Caspian is torn between two women, and he is sure to lose one. But what of the other?
Relationships: Caspian & Ramandu's Daughter | Liliandil, Caspian (Narnia) & Original Female Character(s), Caspian (Narnia)/Original Female Character(s), Caspian/Ramandu's Daughter | Liliandil
Series: The Moon World [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1608862





	The Woman He Cannot Lose

**Author's Note:**

> This is a one-shot I wrote at 4am while I was writing Morelia. I couldn't get Caspian and Rose out of my head... TWHCL isn't necessarily in-canon with the rest of the series, but you can read it that way if you want to.

Caspian is a torn man. His heart is split two ways, divided between one happy life and another. He cares for them both, loves them both, can't imagine not loving them both.

Lilliandil is the most beautiful creature he has ever laid eyes on, with the purest soul in all the worlds. She is patient and ever kind, the embodiment of selflessness. She would be the perfect queen.

But Rose – Rose is selfless too, though that part of her must be earned. She is hard and cold at first, slow to trust and even slower to love. She has a temper, she is complicated, she has as many responsibilities as he does with no room for more. But once her trust – her love even – is given, there isn't a soul alive more loyal than she. Caspian knows with burning clarity that she will never leave him. He'll always be able to count on her counsel, her midnight escapades to her magical world. He will never lose her, no matter what he does. She proved that when she allowed a perfect stranger into her world with no hostility. Wariness, yes, but no spite.

He also knows she does not love him, not in that way at least. How can she? She's engaged now, as is he. He couldn't be happier for her, really.

Aslan help him, he can't help but love her. He loves Rose as a friend, as an equal, as a woman, and…as more. Caspian was sure that those years away from her would whisk away those feelings he knows she can't reciprocate. They didn't, and now he might be in love with two women. One, a lady of grace with the blood of stars in her veins. The other, a walled and cautious woman with little trust to give, trust somehow gifted to him nonetheless.

Perhaps that is why he feels as he does. Her trust and friendship were hard won over long years. It was never easy with her, has never been and probably never will be. Rose has many flaws. Lilli, perhaps, not so.

If Lilli has a flaw he can think of, it's simply being too good, too selfless, too giving to everyone else. Lilli is the type of woman to keep on giving of herself until there's nothing left. But the truly remarkable thing about Lilli is that she never seems to run out of love to give. Where Rose's love is rare and tentative, Lilli's bubbles over constantly, giving light to every soul she even glances at.

Caspian prays to Aslan constantly. He falls asleep praying for guidance and sanity, and wakes with the same entreaties dancing on his tongue. But the Great Lion has remained silent to his pleas, night after night, morning after morning. Caspian is rapidly approaching desperation; he can hardly bear to see Rose now, for fear that she'll see exactly what he's trying so hard not to feel, what he knows he never should feel. Caspian thinks she wouldn't appreciate his emotions toward her very much. She did, after all, pull away from his kiss all those years ago.

His lips tingle with the memory of what could have been. Would things be different now, if she had not backed away, had not whispered her denial across his mouth?

Caspian wishes very much that Professor Cornelius were still here. There's rarely a time he doesn't miss his old tutor, but in times like this the ache is especially acute. The Professor always had a knack for getting to the very bottom of things. Especially things about Rose.

Tonight, Caspian remains as tormented as ever, striding from one end of his chambers to the other, and back, then back again. Dinner has left him in an especially tumultuous mood – Lilli wanted to discuss another trip to see Rose, and Caspian could barely set plans. He feared Lilli too would see his feelings, perhaps even more than he feared Rose would. It wouldn't be fair to Lilli, it wouldn't. It would hurt her terribly. She would be ever gracious of course, but how can he do that to her after the long journey she made with him to Narnia? It would be horribly selfish of him to ruin things with Lilli after she's come all this way for him.

"Aslan, Aslan," Caspian murmurs, tortured by his own heart. "Tell me what to do."

As always, only silence greets him. Caspian sighs and resigns himself to another long night of restlessness. He hasn't been sleeping well of late, and that's not likely to change until this whole mess is sorted out. His heart is leaden in his chest as he climbs into bed.

* * *

Ahead, a light. Caspian squints in the face of it. His feet carry him toward it, the blinding white thing on the horizon. His steps don't echo like they should. He keeps on, and the light seems to grow as if to swallow him whole. But when he gets closer, the scent of lilies washes over him and there's no need to fear anything. A phantom wave from some unknown and yet familiar shore licks at his calves.

Then warmth. Sweet, golden warmth. It blinds him like the Lily Lake at the end of the world, but here there is no sweet water to make it bearable. Perhaps if he keeps moving, it'll let up.

One foot, then the other. Caspian shuffles forward with his right hand shielding his eyes from the painful brightness, and for a long while it seems as though the universe is now nothing but warm, blinding light, and it's always been so and will forever be so. Caspian's quite resigned by the time something snaps his attention away from his aching eyes. A hand softened by age and a lifetime shuttered indoors rests on his shoulder, and Caspian knows at once to follow where it leads. He would know the hand of his old Professor anywhere.

A groan and a light click sound right in front of him, and at once the light gives way to the crackling, bearable heat of a fireplace in a most familiar study. There are the grey stone walls, the rich brown drapes, the bookshelves, the hourglass and the rusted scale. But dearest of all, the organized clutter of precious tomes and ancient scrolls sprawled across the table in the middle, with a painting of the Kings and Queens of Old there on the top. Caspian breathes in the bookish smell of the place and greets his Professor with the widest smile he's had in weeks.

"Professor," he sighs, relieved at the familiar presence. "I've missed you much of late."

Professor Cornelius regards him with that beloved twinkle in his grey eyes. "As have I, my dear boy. You do not often venture here."

The Professor gestures to twin armchairs by the fire, rich and red and achingly familiar.

"I'm afraid I don't know where here is," Caspian answers honestly, plopping down into the closest chair in a more dignified heap than usual. "But I'm quite glad I've found it now."

Cornelius's mouth twitches under his beard – he's holding back a smile. "A guiding hand can make all the difference in the world." The old half-dwarf settles into the other chair and folds his hands over his belly, regarding Caspian with an expectant kind of scrutiny.

"Yes," Caspian muses, straightening in his chair. "Thank you."

Professor Cornelius smiles fully now, beard crinkling at the edges of his mouth as if to add to the merriment. "Out with it, dear boy. You've not come to sit idly, have you?"

Caspian's heart does a strange little jump. How he's missed this! He has to take a heavy breath and swallow the unexpected lump in his throat before summarizing his difficulty. He's sure that Professor Cornelius knows the whole thing already and only asked to help him sort it through. That was often his way.

"I suppose," he begins. Caspian clears his throat. "Well, that is…" Lion, it wasn't so difficult to admit it in his own head. He can surely say it to his oldest friend. "I believe I've fallen in love with Rosamar and Lilliandil," he finally blurts. Shame heats his cheeks.

"And now you are determined to choose one, hmm?" Cornelius merely states this, as if it's the simplest thing in the world. Guilt rises to join the shame painted across Caspian's face.

"It makes sense to love Lilliandil," he murmurs, suddenly quite fascinated with his hands. "But I can't ask her to be my queen when my heart also reaches for Rose."

"You are hesitant…I understand. But Rose," Professor Cornelius notes with a raised eyebrow. It's not unkind, but it makes Caspian want to squirm just the same. "You think she would not be receptive?"

Caspian stares at his boots. "I don't know." That is a lie. It sickens him, lying to his old tutor. "No," he amends. "But that's not the difficulty."

"Of course not," the Professor says, "but wouldn't that clarify the matter?"

There it is – the gentle prod to get Caspian thinking, really thinking. Why is it truly so difficult to let the idea of Rose go? He knows he won't lose her friendship, especially as she knows nothing of this.

Caspian swallows. "Perhaps she would, I can't be sure because I can't ask. That alone might jeopardize things."

"My dear boy, you are afraid to lose her."

Caspian frowns. Technically, he's afraid of losing either of them, or even both, but he feels quite sure that isn't what Professor Cornelius means. But he knows he won't lose Rose, doesn't he?

"It would not be the loss you imagine now." The Professor's voice has suddenly gone soft and sad. He must know something, he must see both paths and where they lead. Caspian almost asks how, exactly, he would lose Rose if not from lack of reciprocity, but he understands deep down that he isn't meant to know, at least not yet.

"What must I do?" The words fall from Caspian's lips like feathers to the floor. Amid all the confusion is the sudden, painful certainty that something awful will happen no matter what he chooses.

The Professor hesitates before peering over his spectacles and saying words Caspian never wanted to hear. "You must let go of the woman you cannot lose."

Caspian stares. He's supposed to let go of the feelings he clings to more? Lion, and he only just realized where his heart was pointing!

"Rose," he whispers, for of course it's Rose he cannot lose. They are kindred spirits, and though he loves Lilli very, very much, Rose is where his heart flies first. Caspian can't explain it, but now that the feelings are there there's little use in it anyway.

Caspian's head falls into his hands. "I don't understand."

Professor Cornelius takes a long time in answering. Really, he doesn't quite answer at all, but Caspian feels the comfort he tries to give.

They sit quietly by the fire until Caspian wakes.

* * *

Caspian doesn't understand what loss the Professor spoke of for many, many years. But when Rilian returns from that picnic with his mother's body cradled in his arms, Caspian realizes at last. Loss, in the bitterest sense, has come to him once more. The woman he cannot live without. The woman he cannot lose. Oh, but he was never prepared to lose the other!

Alongside the sorrow, bitter guilt takes its home in his chest. How could he have chosen this for Lilli? Taken by the fangs of a snake – she never deserved such an end! And he, merely mourning her and not grieving wildly as he should. He misses her, he can't comprehend not seeing her anymore, but shouldn't there be more – some incomprehensible feeling, some sort of death within himself?

Caspian weeps many nights for Lilli and for himself, and refuses all comfort. The only solace is that Rose is now half the country away and he cannot run to her.

* * *

Caspian's mourning is surpassed only by his son's. And when Rilian too is gone, vanished one day while seeking the serpent, Caspian loses what little sense he has left. He finds himself trying to blame Rose, he almost cuts Lord Drinian's head from his shoulders, he even comes near to cursing the name of Aslan. Nothing helps, and Caspian thinks that he well deserves to drown in his guilt and despair. He wrought this, did he not? Why shouldn't he suffer for it?

But Caspian gives himself a few days only to mourn and burrow into self-loathing, and then he writes to Rose for information about the snake. He loses himself to desperation for a few moments, there in the field that took his wife from him, but he pulls himself together remarkably well in the end. He leads the quest to find Rilian, for through Rose and Aslan he knows his son is alive. Though Caspian could not do right by Rilian's mother, he can perhaps still do right by his son. It's the only thing he can do for Lilli now.

* * *

Caspian festers in a quiet anger when Rose takes off and abandons the quest for Rilian with no explanation. A part of him wants to blame her, though he knows she must have a very good reason. But what reason could be more important than the family she promised to help him save? She still has her family, her Darin. Caspian has nothing. And so he goes on blaming her until he barges into her home and smells the kiss of death.

At once, he can't breathe.

Death, death, oh what has he done? How could he have let her slip through his fingers, right into the fangs of the monster? Caspian may well choke – some awful sound comes out anyway.

After that, he's lost to his raging anguish for Lion knows how long. It's the sort of pain that can never quite be explained or understood afterward, the kind that tears off bits of one's soul and tramples them into a pulp underfoot. The kind of agony he should have felt for Lilli. When he finally pulls himself together for the sake of his son, his knuckles are bloodied and his body is shaking. Rose's wall is covered in dents and cracks, her bed is flipped on its side, the nightstand is in pieces across the room. Caspian's throat is dry and scratchy like he's been screaming, but he doesn't remember anything so loud. Besides, no one came running into the house.

He's late for dinner. Eustace starts to tease him about it, but the moment Caspian shows his face the boy practically zips his mouth shut. Even Puddleglum is silent.

This time, Caspian cannot even call it grief, as he rages in his room late that night. This is something beyond grief, something worse even than losing Lilli. He has no name for this, nor does he think there is any name for it at all. This is the feeling of breaking and tearing and burning all at once, of losing all hope and watching everything he's ever cared for crumbling to pieces around him. Rilian is truly all he has left now. He should be sleeping, preparing to leave in the morning. So why does he still weep and smash every mirror in sight and swear by the name of every god he knows?

The woman he could not lose, now lost like all the rest.

* * *

She's alive.

She looks awful, like she's been dragged to Tash's country and back, but she's alive and she's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. Caspian races to her faster than he's run toward anything in his life, half sure she'll vanish into thin air as soon as he reaches her, solid proof of his slipping sanity.

She doesn't. She's real and she's here and, Lion, she's _alive_. Caspian almost lets his tears get the better of him when his arms close at last around her, but cold reality sets in when her arms don't rise to encircle him. Something's wrong.

So he pulls back reluctantly, though his hands still clasp her shoulders. He's terrified she'll vanish again. But when he finally gathers himself enough to look into her eyes, ice shoots from his belly to his boots. He knows that look, that shattered feeling all too well.

The awful truth sinks in at once – it wasn't Rose who died in that house. No, it was the person she loved the most. Darin is the one the snake stole away. How could he ever have blamed her for anything?

"Rose?" he whispers, his breath clouding in the air between them. Vaguely, he hears the children and the Marshwiggle approach, but he's not concerned with them right now.

At the sound of her name, Rose straightens so sharply that Caspian's hands slip from her shoulders. Somehow, he doesn't know how in Aslan's mane she does, but she tucks all that grief away from the world and faces him without a tremor.

"The Giant Bridge?" she questions.

Caspian has no idea what to say. How can she be thinking of the place she was to meet them now, when only a shell of her stares back at him and she should be worrying about anything but his troubles? Why did she even come back? She had every right to stay away and mourn.

"We were worried," he manages, staring down at her.

Now come his three other companions, and with their arrival Rose pulls the last of the pain from her face and steps away from him, heading north.

"Best not waste daylight, then."

To anyone else, Rose's voice is strong and unwavering. But Caspian can't miss the slight catch in "waste" or the tiny twitch in her left pinkie. She's holding herself together, yes, but it won't last forever.

It doesn't, and no matter what Caspian does, nothing soothes that pain always lurking just below the surface.

* * *

The quest for Rilian continues on, leading them into Giant country. They make it over the bridge, Jill and Eustace have a little misadventure at Harfang, and they make their way under the City Ruinous just as Aslan said. But it's empty progress. Rose doesn't want anything to do with him until they're sailing the Sunless Sea, lost in Underland with little hope of ever seeing daylight again. Ever since Caspian found her on the plains, Rose refused to speak to him at all unless to order him away, even during the long trek through the sunless lands with the Earthmen's wavering torches as their guide. Even now she doesn't speak, but she doesn't dismiss him when he sits beside her at the bow of the ship. Jill and Eustace have both gone to sleep, curled up like kittens on either side of Puddleglum. If there's a time to try reaching her, it's now, when his other companions won't overhear.

Caspian wishes there was something, anything he could do. Nothing he's done has broken this wall between them. Perhaps something about this dismal sea will change that.

"Darin's dead." Rose speaks at last, so quietly her words are nearly lost to the dark waves lapping at the bow.

"I know," Caspian blurts. It comes out a whisper, entirely too loud. "Rose, I'm so sorry."

Still no acknowledgement, but when Caspian takes her hand, she doesn't pull away.

* * *

When the quest is over, Rilian rescued and all of them safely back in Narnia, Rose returns home. She doesn't say whether home is Telmara or Tanssi Kuun, but Caspian knows by now not to ask. She's determined to weather this on her own, and he can't help her.

So he lets her go without any fuss, just watches her disappear into the night with the Winter Dance whirling on around him. His son is safe now, returned to him at last, but Caspian can't celebrate with the rest. Rilian offers to sit with him, but Caspian sends him back into the excitement with a father's fondness and keeps his vigil in solitude.

A small piece of him wonders if he'll ever see Rose again, but the larger pieces rest easy. Somehow Caspian knows he will, though it may not be for a long time. He promised her he wouldn't stand in her way, and he intends to keep that promise for as long as it takes. He'll miss her, he misses her already, but the important thing is that she's alive. Though letting her go feels very much like losing her, Caspian has faith it won't be forever. The rest, he leaves to Aslan.

And one day, sure as the dawn, she returns.


End file.
